The Fantastic Four: First Foes – Shalla-Bal #1 // Review
Shalla Bal addresses her daughter. Shalla Bal has been given a gift by her new employer. Her daughter asks if that gift could bring her back home. Alas, she has other obligations. Her employer is one of the most powerful beings in the whole of the mutiverse. So...y’know...she’s going tobe busy in The Fantastic Four: First Foes – Shalla-Bal #1. Writer Charles Soule and artist Mark Buckingham tell a one-shot story with colorist Alex Sinclair. Bits of the backstory of last year’s Fantastic Four Film are revealed in an issue that tells a very concise story cleverly-drawn from a bit of dialogue in that movie.
Quite a long time later, Shalla Bal is engaging in battle with opposing forces on a war-torn planet. There are those innocents who may be lost in the conflict, but Shalla Bal has a great responsibility to the world-devourer Galactus. As it turns out, those on the planet have become aware that they may be the next target on the list. They have set things in motion which just might be able to spare them from the horrible fate of a visit from Galactus. It’s a huge gamble, but it just might work.
In last year’s film...the Shalla-Bal Silver Surfer addresses the people of Earth, telling them that they should hold their loved ones close because their entire planet will be destroyed. Soule explores a bit of the emotional background of the character of this particular Shalla-Bal in a cleverly thoughtful bit of writing. The background on Shalla-Bal turns her into something more interesting than a simple villain and arguably...a lot more sophisticated than the Norrin Rad version of the character originally created by Jack Kirby back in the 1960s. Under another cover this might be “What If...Silver Surfer Stayed with Galactus?”
Buckingham’s artwork lacks the subtle complexity of Soule’s script. This is perfectly fine as the story is meant to be kind of overwhelmnig visually. The lack of subtlety kind of goes with the territory. The visuals of the issue are, however, kind of underwhelming. Buckingham’s line work in the issue feels reminiscent of Ron Lim’s work with Silver Surfer from the early 1990s...but Lim’s work had a dynamic range that could really explode off the page. That dynamic is absolutely essential for the impact of Soule’s story. Buckingham manages some of the explosiveness without meeting its full potential. Sinclair’s color manages a bit of extra style and definition, but it’s not quite enough.
Not that Soule would necessarily know this, but there are mirror parallels between Brennert and Scholz’s Twilight Zone story “A Small Talent for War,” and the plot of this issue. In that story the U.N. works out a plan for world peace in an interest of saving the Earth from annihilation by an extra-terrestrial power. WIth Soule’s story, an alien civilization looks to launch a preemptive strike on an off-world power using powerful weapons. Both end in similar fashion for completely different reasons...both of which involve a simple misunderstanding. It’s an interesting parallel.
